Different faces in the U.S. Senate

Republican Jeff Flake, the congressman who won Arizona's open U.S. Senate seat, built his reputation on a fierce opposition to “earmarks,” the special funding requests for roads, bridges and other local pet projects that are criticized as wasteful patronage.

But Flake faced criticism during the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Jon Kyl that his crusade has hurt efforts to attract new businesses to the state.

Flake won the Senate seat over independent-turned-Democrat Richard Carmona, who was President George W. Bush's surgeon general.

Flake, 49, has been criticized for changing his immigration views. He supported proposals in the past that would have revamped guest-worker programs and created a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But he took a narrower position when he announced his candidacy last year, saying voters won't trust government to fix the nation's immigration woes unless it can first secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

CONNECTICUT

Touting his commitment to the middle class and accusing his rival of favoring the rich, Democrat Chris Murphy, a three-term congressman, defeated Republican former wrestling executive Linda McMahon in the race to succeed retiring independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. In the process, Murphy survived McMahon spending $42 million of her own money.

Murphy, 39, said his priorities include reforming the tax code to help small businesses, promoting and strengthening American manufacturing, rebuilding roads and rails, improving education and growing the renewable energy industry.

HAWAII

U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono is embracing her standing as the state's first woman to serve as senator and the Senate's first Asian American woman after trouncing former Gov. Linda Lingle.

“What it reflects is that we need a lot more diversity in the United States Senate,” said Hirono, who was born in Fukushima, Japan. “I'm going to do my part to support more women to run for Congress and certainly support more minority candidates.”

A Democrat, Hirono, 65, moved to Hawaii with her mother in 1955, then went on to practice law in Honolulu before she was elected to the Hawaii Legislature in 1980. She was elected as lieutenant governor in 1994 and 1998, then lost a governor's race to Lingle in 2002. She was elected to the U.S. House in 2006, and is generally considered one of its more liberal members.

INDIANA

Democrat Joe Donnelly, 57, is a three-term congressman from northern Indiana who ran as a centrist highlighting his support for extending the George W. Bush-era tax cuts while fending off attacks over his support for the federal health care overhaul.

The Senate race turned in Donnelly's favor after Republican Richard Mourdock said in a debate that pregnancies resulting from rape are something “God intended.” Donnelly, meanwhile, twice supported a bill that would have denied federal abortion funding even in cases of rape and incest.

MAINE

Independent Angus King may be just starting out in his new role as a U.S. senator, but he's long been a well-known figure in Maine whose independent politics have been his calling card.

The 68-year-old King was Maine's governor for two terms between 1995 and 2003, establishing credentials as someone who could work with both parties. Before that he spent 18 years as a public broadcasting commentator on state public policy issues.

Angus Stanley King Jr. was born in Alexandria, Va., grew up there in a politically active family, and after law school at the University of Virginia came to Maine as a lawyer serving low-income people.

He later went to work for William Hathaway, the Democrat who ousted entrenched Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith from her Senate seat. Hathaway's election in 1972 led to King's appointment to staff of the Senate Labor Committee.

MASSACHUSETTS

Democrat Elizabeth Warren, 63, is preparing for the transition from the upper echelons of academia at Harvard Law School to the halls of Washington, where she will occupy the seat once held by Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Warren came to prominence nationally after the financial collapse of 2008, when she was tapped to serve as chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which authorized the U.S. Treasury to spend $700 billion to stabilize the economy. She pushed for the creation of a new federal agency to hold the nation's largest financial institutions accountable by protecting consumers from “tricks and traps” hidden in mortgages, credit cards and other products.

She is the first woman in Massachusetts elected to serve in the U.S. Senate.

NEBRASKA

Republican Deb Fischer's rise from little-known rancher and state senator to Nebraska's U.S. senator-elect completes the deeply conservative state's move to full Republican domination.

Fischer, 61, handed Democrat Bob Kerrey his first loss in Nebraska, handily defeating the former governor and two-term U.S. senator. She benefited from a flood of outside money that paid for relentless television ads attacking first her better-known and better-funded primary opponents, then Kerrey in the general election.

NEW MEXICO

Democrats held onto both of New Mexico's Senate seats Tuesday with election of one of the state's fast-rising political stars, Martin Heinrich.

The 41-year-old, two-term representative in the U.S. House defeated Republican Heather Wilson for the seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Jeff Bingaman.

Heinrich portrayed himself as a defender of the middle class and safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

NORTH DAKOTA

Democrat Heidi Heitkamp is the first woman ever to serve North Dakota in Congress. The former North Dakota attorney general and tax commissioner defeated Republican Rick Berg on Tuesday by about 3,000 votes.

As attorney general, Heitkamp, 57, was one of the lead negotiators of a $206 billion lawsuit settlement reached by 46 states with the nation's largest tobacco companies to compensate the states' medical expenses for treating smoking-related illnesses.

She has vehemently disagreed with what she describes as President Barack Obama's hostility to coal and oil as energy sources.

TEXAS

Ted Cruz, the Tea Party darling and former state solicitor general, beat Democrat Paul Sadler to replace retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. But his sweetest victory came in the GOP primary, when he stunned Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, one of the state's most powerful Republicans.

Cruz began the race polling at 2 percent. His father was born in Cuba and fought with Fidel Castro before his government embraced communism, then fled for Texas with $100. Cruz was born in Canada while his parents were there working in the oil fields. Cruz, 41, is the first Latino from Texas to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

VIRGINIA

Virginia Sen.-elect Tim Kaine, 54, the son of an Overland Park, Kan., ironworker, spent a year as a missionary in Honduras. Later, his law practice focused on civil rights, and that morphed into Democratic politics. He won a Richmond City Council seat in 1994 and served as mayor for a term.

In February 2007, Kaine, as governor, hitched his future to the longshot presidential bid of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and became the first statewide elected official outside Obama's home state Illinois to endorse him.

Kaine ruled out serving as Democratic National Committee chairman after Obama's 2008 election, but then served two years in that very position, one of those years shared with a final year as governor.

WISCONSIN

Tammy Baldwin's victory marks the first time the state has elected a woman to the Senate. She is also the first openly gay candidate ever elected to the Senate.

In 1998, she became the first woman from Wisconsin elected to the U.S. House. Baldwin defeated former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who had that office for 14 years.

Baldwin, 50, has been a staunch supporter of President Barack Obama's health care reform law.

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